Following their morale crushing defeat at Lords, England capped an incredible

turnaround in front of a unique Edgbaston crowd to seal an 8 wicket win as the

hosts went 2-1 up in the third test of the 2015 Investec Ashes Test Series.
Ian Bell, who was much criticised for his poor form coming into the match, scored
half centuries in both innings in front of his home crowd, thus giving a fitting
reply to the critics who were asking for his removal from the playing eleven.
Incidentally, Bell scored 15% of the total runs in the entire Test.
However for England, it was the duo of James Anderson and Steven Finn who
setup the victory with their fiery bowling to skittle out the Australian batsmen in
both the innings. While Anderson was instrumental to bowl out the hosts on the
first day with an impressive return of 6-47, Finn, the man of the match took 6-79
to thwart the Aussie line-up in the second innings. Its a shame however that
Anderson will miss the next test at Oval due to a side strain sustained.
For Australia however, its back to square one and possibly off to the drawing
board. Steven Smith for once looked mortal, failing to score big in either innings
while time is surely running out for captain Michael Clarke. Pup failed in both
innings and his lean patch sadly is continuing now in 6 test innings and also
dropped Bell in the second innings when the English batsman was on 20.
Clarke later in the post-match presentation said, It's very hard to explain. Credit
has to go to England, they bowled well on day one and we didn't bat anywhere
near we'd have liked. I still would have batted first, you can see the wicket has
deteriorated. It swung and seamed throughout the whole game. We probably
had the best batting conditions, we just didn't execute with bat and ball.
It wouldnt be a huge surprise if Shane Watson makes a return at Oval with Smith
taking over the captaincy.
As far as the bowling department is concerned, Mitchell Johnson for once looked
off form despite his middle spell in the first innings. Mitchell Starc too doesnt
look like the same type of bowler he is in the short format. The only positive for
the visitors from the test match would be Peter Nevills determined stand in the
second innings, trying to hold one end up and denying England an even quicker
win within two days.
The Australian side will need to come back hard at the Oval like they did at Lord
lest they would allow their fierce rivals to claim the famous Ashes urn.